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On Friday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that his state would commit $1.4 billion to 26 renewable projects, including 22 solar farms, three wind farms, and one hydroelectric project. The outlay is a huge sum compared to what most states spend on renewable energy.

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At the same time, the governor denounced the Trump administration's plan to open nearly 90 percent of offshore federal waters to oil drilling. Cuomo asked that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke exclude two areas off the New York coast from lease sales, citing concerns about oil spills like the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. Cuomo noted that Florida has been able to obtain verbal approval that lease sales won't be held in waters adjacent to the Florida coast (although some officials in the administration have contradicted that exemption).

The renewable projects will be sited throughout the state and were chosen by New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) based on the proposed cost of each project, the project's ability to create local jobs, and developer experience in building renewable projects in New York.

The solar installations range from a 1.53MW installation in the western town of Java, New York to a 100MW installation in the town of Coxsackie, just 25 miles south of the state capital of Albany. The southern tier of the Empire State will get two wind farms at 272MW and 121.8MW each, while another will be added in western New York with a capacity of 330.78MW.

As for hydro? Money for that project will be used to renovate an existing hydro plant, and the renovations are expected to result in an extra 3.23MW.

New York is also making moves to accelerate offshore wind adoption. In January 2017, Governor Cuomo approved a 90MW wind farm off the coast of Long Island, and the state committed to installing 2.4GW of offshore wind before 2030.

New York is also making moves to accelerate offshore wind adoption. In January 2017, Governor Cuomo approved a 90MW wind farm off the coast of Long Island, and the state committed to installing 2.4GW of offshore wind before 2030.

Don't pat Cuomo on the back. He was about to approve new oil and gas pipelines just last year. I worked with a group to lobby against these lines. In fact, his administration is being investigated for possibly being bribed to approve the newest gas plant.

Edit: Also, please don't scream over the loss of Indian Point. The plant isn't as important as many claim. It was running at half-capacity for over a year with no impact to NY's energy consumption.

This is a good first step but sadly it is not enough to even fill the hole created by closing Indian Point. It is easy when looking at a nuclear reactor to lose sight of just how much power it produces. 2.083 GW at 91% capacity factor is just an insane amount of energy per year.

If you assume a mix of onshore wind, offshore wind, and solar with an average capacity factor of 35% it would require about 5.5 GW of capacity to replace the annual generation at Indian Point (2.083 * 0.91 / 0.35 ). Based on this article the state is adding less than a quarter of that before Indian Point is idled meaning most of the shortfall will be gas (thankfully gas not coal).

Edit: Also, please don't scream over the loss of Indian Point. The plant isn't as important as many claim. It was running at half-capacity for over a year with no impact to NY's energy consumption.

That is a strawman. Yes grids have excess capacity but it running at half capacity means more natural gas being burned to make up the difference. Nobody has claimed taking a reactor offline would cause the grid to fail but that isn't the point.

Edit: Also, please don't scream over the loss of Indian Point. The plant isn't as important as many claim. It was running at half-capacity for over a year with no impact to NY's energy consumption.

That is a strawman. Yes grids have excess capacity but it running at half capacity means more natural gas being burned to make up the difference. Nobody has claimed taking a reactor offline would cause the grid to fail but that isn't the point.

Wow, predicted it.

Actually, there are a lot of people who claim that the loss of Indian Point would be catastrophic. But as you said that isn't the point.

What is the point is the fact that Indian Point's loss can be made up with other technologies. You need to provide proof that gas was the replacement, but even if that was the case at the time it won't be the case in the future. There is enough shoreline off Long Island to build dozens of new wind farms. And the 90MW farm alone can be built up to provide over 600MW of power. A few dozen of those could power all of NYS.

Edit: Also, please don't scream over the loss of Indian Point. The plant isn't as important as many claim. It was running at half-capacity for over a year with no impact to NY's energy consumption.

That is a strawman. Yes grids have excess capacity but it running at half capacity means more natural gas being burned to make up the difference. Nobody has claimed taking a reactor offline would cause the grid to fail but that isn't the point.

Wow, predicted it.

Actually, there are a lot of people who claim that the loss of Indian Point would be catastrophic. But as you said that isn't the point.

What is the point is the fact that Indian Point's loss can be made up with other technologies. You need to provide proof that gas was the replacement, but even if that was the case at the time it won't be the case in the future. There is enough shoreline off Long Island to build dozens of new wind farms. And the 90MW farm alone can be built up to provide over 600MW of power. A few dozen of those could power all of NYS.

Someday sure anything can be replaced with anything on a long enough timeline. A few dozen offshore wind farms with 4 GW of capacity won't be built in 2021. The reactors will be idled in 2021 so the lost capacity will be met with the grid as it exists in 2021 not some hypothetical we could power the whole state with wind which doesn't exist. Now not all of the 15,000 GWh will be met by fossil fuels because NY is building new renewable capacity. The plants outlined in the article will produce about 4 GWh of the 15 GWh but the rest will be fossil fuels (mostly gas).

Not sure where you get the idea that closing Indian Point isn't a bad thing for CO2 emissions in the short term. Indian Point produces 15,000 GWh in low carbon energy annually. The proposed new renewable plants scheduled to be built prior to its closure produce less than a quarter of that. If Indian Point was being shutdown in 2030 then it might be less of an issue but it isn't.

Edit: Also, please don't scream over the loss of Indian Point. The plant isn't as important as many claim. It was running at half-capacity for over a year with no impact to NY's energy consumption.

That is a strawman. Yes grids have excess capacity but it running at half capacity means more natural gas being burned to make up the difference. Nobody has claimed taking a reactor offline would cause the grid to fail but that isn't the point.

Wow, predicted it.

Actually, there are a lot of people who claim that the loss of Indian Point would be catastrophic. But as you said that isn't the point.

What is the point is the fact that Indian Point's loss can be made up with other technologies. You need to provide proof that gas was the replacement, but even if that was the case at the time it won't be the case in the future. There is enough shoreline off Long Island to build dozens of new wind farms. And the 90MW farm alone can be built up to provide over 600MW of power. A few dozen of those could power all of NYS.

Someday sure anything can be replaced with anything on a long enough timeline. A few dozen offshore wind farms won't be built in 2021. The reactors will be idled in 2021 so the lost capacity will be me with the grid as it exists in 2021 not some hypothetical we could power the whole state with wind which doesn't exist.

Not sure where you get the idea that closing Indian Point isn't a bad thing for CO2 emissions in the short term. Indian Point produces 15,000 GWh in low carbon energy annually. The proposed new renewable plants scheduled to be built prior to its closure produce less than a quarter of that. If Indian Point was being shutdown in 2030 then it might be less of an issue but it isn't.

You must be unaware of the fact that NYS is already using renewable energy. There are on-shore wind farms, off-sure, solar, hydro... Not to mention battery storage.

Yes keyword is already. They are already using those renewables AND a 2.1 GW nuclear facility today. In 2021 the 2.1 GW nuclear facility will go offline and the new renewables to offset that retirement will only provide about a quarter of the annual generation.

It is possible for more renewables to be good and at the same time shutting down a nuclear plant early to be bad because those new renewables rather than displacing coal and gas are now filling a hole create by the nuclear plant.

It is not a conspiracy. It isn't crazy talk. It is pretty simple and straightforward.

Edit: Also, please don't scream over the loss of Indian Point. The plant isn't as important as many claim. It was running at half-capacity for over a year with no impact to NY's energy consumption.

That is a strawman. Yes grids have excess capacity but it running at half capacity means more natural gas being burned to make up the difference. Nobody has claimed taking a reactor offline would cause the grid to fail but that isn't the point.

Wow, predicted it.

Actually, there are a lot of people who claim that the loss of Indian Point would be catastrophic. But as you said that isn't the point.

What is the point is the fact that Indian Point's loss can be made up with other technologies. You need to provide proof that gas was the replacement, but even if that was the case at the time it won't be the case in the future. There is enough shoreline off Long Island to build dozens of new wind farms. And the 90MW farm alone can be built up to provide over 600MW of power. A few dozen of those could power all of NYS.

Someday sure anything can be replaced with anything on a long enough timeline. A few dozen offshore wind farms won't be built in 2021. The reactors will be idled in 2021 so the lost capacity will be me with the grid as it exists in 2021 not some hypothetical we could power the whole state with wind which doesn't exist.

Not sure where you get the idea that closing Indian Point isn't a bad thing for CO2 emissions in the short term. Indian Point produces 15,000 GWh in low carbon energy annually. The proposed new renewable plants scheduled to be built prior to its closure produce less than a quarter of that. If Indian Point was being shutdown in 2030 then it might be less of an issue but it isn't.

You must be unaware of the fact that NYS is already using renewable energy. There are on-shore wind farms, off-sure, solar, hydro... Not to mention battery storage.

It doesn't matter. What matters is the marginal electricity that will be produced to replace it. Which is fossil fuels, since renewables get used the same regardless.

Edit: Also, please don't scream over the loss of Indian Point. The plant isn't as important as many claim. It was running at half-capacity for over a year with no impact to NY's energy consumption.

That is a strawman. Yes grids have excess capacity but it running at half capacity means more natural gas being burned to make up the difference. Nobody has claimed taking a reactor offline would cause the grid to fail but that isn't the point.

Wow, predicted it.

Actually, there are a lot of people who claim that the loss of Indian Point would be catastrophic. But as you said that isn't the point.

What is the point is the fact that Indian Point's loss can be made up with other technologies. You need to provide proof that gas was the replacement, but even if that was the case at the time it won't be the case in the future. There is enough shoreline off Long Island to build dozens of new wind farms. And the 90MW farm alone can be built up to provide over 600MW of power. A few dozen of those could power all of NYS.

Someday sure anything can be replaced with anything on a long enough timeline. A few dozen offshore wind farms won't be built in 2021. The reactors will be idled in 2021 so the lost capacity will be me with the grid as it exists in 2021 not some hypothetical we could power the whole state with wind which doesn't exist.

Not sure where you get the idea that closing Indian Point isn't a bad thing for CO2 emissions in the short term. Indian Point produces 15,000 GWh in low carbon energy annually. The proposed new renewable plants scheduled to be built prior to its closure produce less than a quarter of that. If Indian Point was being shutdown in 2030 then it might be less of an issue but it isn't.

You must be unaware of the fact that NYS is already using renewable energy. There are on-shore wind farms, off-sure, solar, hydro... Not to mention battery storage.

It doesn't matter. What matters is the marginal electricity that will be produced to replace it. Which is fossil fuels, since renewables get used the same regardless.

That is a strawman. Yes grids have excess capacity but it running at half capacity means more natural gas being burned to make up the difference. Nobody has claimed taking a reactor offline would cause the grid to fail but that isn't the point.

Wow, predicted it.

Actually, there are a lot of people who claim that the loss of Indian Point would be catastrophic. But as you said that isn't the point.

What is the point is the fact that Indian Point's loss can be made up with other technologies. You need to provide proof that gas was the replacement, but even if that was the case at the time it won't be the case in the future. There is enough shoreline off Long Island to build dozens of new wind farms. And the 90MW farm alone can be built up to provide over 600MW of power. A few dozen of those could power all of NYS.

Someday sure anything can be replaced with anything on a long enough timeline. A few dozen offshore wind farms won't be built in 2021. The reactors will be idled in 2021 so the lost capacity will be me with the grid as it exists in 2021 not some hypothetical we could power the whole state with wind which doesn't exist.

Not sure where you get the idea that closing Indian Point isn't a bad thing for CO2 emissions in the short term. Indian Point produces 15,000 GWh in low carbon energy annually. The proposed new renewable plants scheduled to be built prior to its closure produce less than a quarter of that. If Indian Point was being shutdown in 2030 then it might be less of an issue but it isn't.

You must be unaware of the fact that NYS is already using renewable energy. There are on-shore wind farms, off-sure, solar, hydro... Not to mention battery storage.

It doesn't matter. What matters is the marginal electricity that will be produced to replace it. Which is fossil fuels, since renewables get used the same regardless.

Edit: Also, please don't scream over the loss of Indian Point. The plant isn't as important as many claim. It was running at half-capacity for over a year with no impact to NY's energy consumption.

That is a strawman. Yes grids have excess capacity but it running at half capacity means more natural gas being burned to make up the difference. Nobody has claimed taking a reactor offline would cause the grid to fail but that isn't the point.

Wow, predicted it.

Actually, there are a lot of people who claim that the loss of Indian Point would be catastrophic. But as you said that isn't the point.

What is the point is the fact that Indian Point's loss can be made up with other technologies. You need to provide proof that gas was the replacement, but even if that was the case at the time it won't be the case in the future. There is enough shoreline off Long Island to build dozens of new wind farms. And the 90MW farm alone can be built up to provide over 600MW of power. A few dozen of those could power all of NYS.

Someday sure anything can be replaced with anything on a long enough timeline. A few dozen offshore wind farms won't be built in 2021. The reactors will be idled in 2021 so the lost capacity will be me with the grid as it exists in 2021 not some hypothetical we could power the whole state with wind which doesn't exist.

Not sure where you get the idea that closing Indian Point isn't a bad thing for CO2 emissions in the short term. Indian Point produces 15,000 GWh in low carbon energy annually. The proposed new renewable plants scheduled to be built prior to its closure produce less than a quarter of that. If Indian Point was being shutdown in 2030 then it might be less of an issue but it isn't.

You must be unaware of the fact that NYS is already using renewable energy. There are on-shore wind farms, off-sure, solar, hydro... Not to mention battery storage.

It doesn't matter. What matters is the marginal electricity that will be produced to replace it. Which is fossil fuels, since renewables get used the same regardless.

OTOH, refurbishing Indian Point would likely cost a lot of money, which is now freed up for building bigger interconnects to Hydro-Quebec and Ontario Hydro (the former is largely hydro; the latter is largely nuclear) and building more renewables.

Don't pat Cuomo on the back. He was about to approve new oil and gas pipelines just last year. I worked with a group to lobby against these lines. In fact, his administration is being investigated for possibly being bribed to approve the newest gas plant.

Edit: Also, please don't scream over the loss of Indian Point. The plant isn't as important as many claim. It was running at half-capacity for over a year with no impact to NY's energy consumption.

I live a few miles from indian point. and while it may not be as important today as it was 10 years ago, it still is quite important.

Can someone enlighten me on the economics here? They're spending $1.4 Billion to add 1,380MW of renewable energy. That's almost exactly $1 Million per MW. Does that sound right to everyone?

Furthermore, using that rate, would it really cost more than $2 Billion to keep the 2 GW Nuclear plant running? I know building nuclear plants is stupidly expensive (which is a problem we can fix with new designs and economies of scale, but the politics to make *that* happen is much harder than the engineering...), but shouldn't keeping an existing facility going be much cheaper than that?

More renewables is always good, but I'm still having trouble seeing how this plan makes logical sense

Can someone enlighten me on the economics here? They're spending $1.4 Billion to add 1,380MW of renewable energy. That's almost exactly $1 Million per MW. Does that sound right to everyone?

Furthermore, using that rate, would it really cost more than $2 Billion to keep the 2 GW Nuclear plant running? I know building nuclear plants is stupidly expensive (which is a problem we can fix with new designs and economies of scale, but the politics to make *that* happen is much harder than the engineering...), but shouldn't keeping an existing facility going be much cheaper than that?

More renewables is always good, but I'm still having trouble seeing how this plan makes logical sense

The closing of Indian Point is more NIMBism. It would need subsidies to stay open but like you point out it isn't like new capacity is free either. The other issue is the state demanded a new cooling tower (at an estimate $1B) cost to extend the plant operation through 2035. That obviously changes the economics of the plant staying open by just a bit. The cooling tower would reduce the number of fish deaths so it does have some merit but balance 15,000 GWh annually of low carbon energy vs increased localized fish deaths.

If the public had a positive opinion of nuclear then subsidizing it to keep it open would be viable. It doesn't. So it will be killed and the state will spend more than a decade trying to fill that hole.

It shows that as a species we aren't yet ready to make the hard choices needed to combat climate change.

Can someone enlighten me on the economics here? They're spending $1.4 Billion to add 1,380MW of renewable energy. That's almost exactly $1 Million per MW. Does that sound right to everyone?

Furthermore, using that rate, would it really cost more than $2 Billion to keep the 2 GW Nuclear plant running? I know building nuclear plants is stupidly expensive (which is a problem we can fix with new designs and economies of scale, but the politics to make *that* happen is much harder than the engineering...), but shouldn't keeping an existing facility going be much cheaper than that?

More renewables is always good, but I'm still having trouble seeing how this plan makes logical sense

Indian Point is shutting down because it needs to be overhauled due to safety issues. It's constantly leaking radioactive waste and getting fined for it. The cost of an overhaul (I remember an upgrade costing $1B to deal with a single problem), along with operating costs, are more than its parent company wants to spend. The state refuses to provide the subsidies because it's already allocating over $7B to the remaining nuclear plants.

So it's not just the enviro-nuts who want to shut Indian Point down. Its owner doesn't want it, either.

Can someone enlighten me on the economics here? They're spending $1.4 Billion to add 1,380MW of renewable energy. That's almost exactly $1 Million per MW. Does that sound right to everyone?

For high level comparisons of projects, numbers are usually given as $/MWh. Using MWh instead of MW requires making predictions about the capacity factor and how many years the project will be in operation -- both are important quantities that need to be included if you're going to reasonably compare.

One area where $/MW is commonly bandied about is the cost of Solar. In that context, the conversation isn't so much about the value you get out of the solar (MWh) but in how the costs are changing over time, independent of any project details. At least in that context, utility scale solar is roughly $1/W or 1 million dollars per megawatt installed. Some projects are being bid much cheaper than that, but they tend to be countries with lower labor costs and looser regulations.

Quote:

Furthermore, using that rate, would it really cost more than $2 Billion to keep the 2 GW Nuclear plant running? I know building nuclear plants is stupidly expensive (which is a problem we can fix with new designs and economies of scale, but the politics to make *that* happen is much harder than the engineering...), but shouldn't keeping an existing facility going be much cheaper than that?

Running for 30 more years (assuming that new wind/solar/whatever will last about that long). Indian Point needs to shut down sometime, keeping it open for another 30 years will likely require a very expensive overhaul at some point.

I agree with Statistical that shutting down Indian Point before we absolutely need to is a major setback for reaching climate goals. We need massive investment in clean energy and to keep whatever clean energy we already have going for as long as practical. If we had a reasonable price on carbon, Indian Point would very likely be competitive with natural gas, and would not be facing shutdown in the short term. If we're not going to price carbon, then nuclear subsidies is a next best choice.

Can someone enlighten me on the economics here? They're spending $1.4 Billion to add 1,380MW of renewable energy. That's almost exactly $1 Million per MW. Does that sound right to everyone?

Furthermore, using that rate, would it really cost more than $2 Billion to keep the 2 GW Nuclear plant running? I know building nuclear plants is stupidly expensive (which is a problem we can fix with new designs and economies of scale, but the politics to make *that* happen is much harder than the engineering...), but shouldn't keeping an existing facility going be much cheaper than that?

More renewables is always good, but I'm still having trouble seeing how this plan makes logical sense

Indian Point is shutting down because it needs to be overhauled due to safety issues. It's constantly leaking radioactive waste and getting fined for it. The cost of an overhaul (I remember an upgrade costing $1B to deal with a single problem), along with operating costs, are more than its parent company wants to spend. The state refuses to provide the subsidies because it's already allocating over $7B to the remaining nuclear plants.

So it's not just the enviro-nuts who want to shut Indian Point down. Its owner doesn't want it, either.

Thank you for the succinct break-down.

(I don't have enough hours in the day to do background research for every article I read or question that pops up on something I'd not been following much)

To be fair NY does still have another power nuclear plant, and connections to a plant in Ontario in it's grid. So it's not like that figure would go down to zero when Indian Point does go down.

Quick search mentions that they are only producing 34.2% of the current nuke production which quick maths comes out to just 1789.16MW so with this announcement of 1380MW of green energy to be added on it means there would be just a difference of 409.17MW short term. Which is still a lot to be sure, but thats about 2.6% of the chart youve posted.

Your right there are other nuclear plants but not sure where you math came from. Indian Point is 2.1 GW and averages 91% capacity factor for roughly 15,000 GWh annually or about 11% of the state's annual generation. The new renewables, 1.3 GW at 35% capacity factor will produce about 4,000 GWh annually meaning a deficit of around 11,000 GWh after the closure.

Remember you can't simply look at capacity. Capacity (GW, MW etc) * capacity factor * 24 * 365 = Generation annually (GWh, MWh, etc). To replace 2.1 GW @ 91% capacity factor would require roughly 5.5 GW at 35% capacity factor. In other words if you built 5.5 GW of mixed renewables and shut down the plant at the same time one would effectively cancel the other.

Panels are rated based on 1000 W/m^2 irradiance, so the NY flux is equivalent to 4.62 hours/day of rated output. Each installed Watt of capacity will therefore produce 4.62 x 365 = 1686 Watt-hours/year = 1.686 kWh. At retail rates, that is worth $0.337/year.

Utility-scale solar farms are now being built for ~$1/peak watt. Whether that works out economically depends on the *wholesale* electric rate, which I don't know. On the retail rate it pays off in 3 years. The industrial power price is about $0.06/kWh, which would pay off in 10 years.

Panels are rated based on 1000 W/m^2 irradiance, so the NY flux is equivalent to 4.62 hours/day of rated output. Each installed Watt of capacity will therefore produce 4.62 x 365 = 1686 Watt-hours/year = 1.686 kWh. At retail rates, that is worth $0.337/year.

Utility-scale solar farms are now being built for ~$1/peak watt. Whether that works out economically depends on the *wholesale* electric rate, which I don't know. On the retail rate it pays off in 3 years. The industrial power price is about $0.06/kWh, which would pay off in 10 years.

You can't really go off retail rate though as that is the price paid by the consumer which includes the entire cost of the grid including transmission and distribution plus things like peaking plants to continually match supply and demand. Essentially it is the whole grid plus profit margin for the utility.

Wholesale power rates are usually closer to $0.05 per kWh ($50/MWh) but solar is still viable. You probably don't want solar to be dominant in a location like NY but mixing some in isn't going to kill the operator and mix of generation has a value by itself (solar will be anti correlated to wind in the summer).

To be fair NY does still have another power nuclear plant, and connections to a plant in Ontario in it's grid. So it's not like that figure would go down to zero when Indian Point does go down.

Quick search mentions that they are only producing 34.2% of the current nuke production which quick maths comes out to just 1789.16MW so with this announcement of 1380MW of green energy to be added on it means there would be just a difference of 409.17MW short term. Which is still a lot to be sure, but thats about 2.6% of the chart youve posted.

Your right there are other nuclear plants but not sure where you math came from. Indian Point is 2.1 GW and averages 91% capacity factor for roughly 15,000 GWh annually or about 11% of the state's annual generation. The new renewables, 1.3 GW at 35% capacity factor will produce about 4,000 GWh annually meaning a deficit of around 11,000 GWh after the closure.

Remember you can't simply look at capacity. Capacity (GW, MW etc) * capacity factor * 24 * 365 = Generation annually (GWh, MWh, etc). To replace 2.1 GW @ 91% capacity factor would require roughly 5.5 GW at 35% capacity factor. In other words if you built 5.5 GW of mixed renewables and shut down the plant at the same time one would effectively cancel the other.

Yeah, sorry, I'm at work so I've been going back and forth editing and very hastily throwing numbers into a spreadsheet. I edited my post to be less nonsense(also I accidentally used a wrong percentage so good for me, I'll leave the math to other people with both time and skill to use it)

Don't pat Cuomo on the back. He was about to approve new oil and gas pipelines just last year. I worked with a group to lobby against these lines. In fact, his administration is being investigated for possibly being bribed to approve the newest gas plant.

Edit: Also, please don't scream over the loss of Indian Point. The plant isn't as important as many claim. It was running at half-capacity for over a year with no impact to NY's energy consumption.

Not sure why additional gas pipeline capacity (presumably located right next to existing gas pipelines) would be a bad thing? Every winter it appears natural gas prices go through the roof >10x and this might reduce the spikes. I may be completely wrong, but it seems we already have the risk with the existing pipes (unless you propose to shut those down, freezing millions of people instead).

2nd edit: Honestly, I think Cuomo is doing a fantastic job re: renewables, as there is a 50% renewables goal by 2030. Seems like that can only happen if renewables largely replace nuclear by 2030 (short term is probably additional natural gas from 2021-2030 until renewables+storage+transmission prices drop/catch up).

Wholesale power rates are usually closer to $0.05 per kWh ($50/MWh) but solar is still viable. You probably don't want solar to be dominant in a location like NY but mixing some in isn't going to kill the operator and mix of generation has a value by itself (solar will be anti correlated to wind in the summer).

$0.05 makes sense for wholesale power if the industrial rate is $0.06. You would expect industrial users to get their power near cost.

Whether a given power plant works out economically also depends on New York's cost of financing over the life of the plants. I assume the state would borrow the money to build the plants, because most governments don't have $1.4 billion sitting around. If the plants are earning 8% return @ $0.05, and the state's cost of borrowing is enough below that, the plants will pay off the bonds before they wear out.

In answer to wavelet's question, yes the 22 solar plants do seem to make sense, more or less.